Village Roadshow Graham Burke used Mad Max Fury Road as an example of how easy it was to illegally download films.Source:News Corp Australia

EXCLUSIVE

AUSTRALIANS will find it harder to illegally download free movies and music as part of a new government crackdown on online piracy.

Download sites such as ThePirateBay.org, 123 Movies.is and EZTV.ag have already been blocked under current laws but Communications Minister Mitch Fifield is pushing for tough new powers that will allow authorities to stop a wider range of sites and ban new sites when they crop up.

Under the proposed laws to be introduced to Parliament today, authorities will also be able to force search engines like Google to stop “unashamedly facilitating crime” by promoting pirate sites that allow internet users to illegally download music or films.

Village Roadshow Graham Burke used Mad Max Fury Road as an example of how easy it was to illegally download films.Source:News Corp Australia

Graham Burke, chief executive of Australian film company Village Roadshow, last night hailed the new laws as game-changing for the industry while slamming Google for acting “as evil as Big Tobacco” in its online behaviour.

“We stand ready to be co-operative with Google. We see good Google and bad Google. But bad Google is as evil as Big Tobacco was 30 years ago. They know what they’re doing. They know they’re facilitating and enabling crime and it’s time for them to clean their act up,” he told News Corp.

He accused Google of “unashamedly facilitating crime” by taking people to criminal pirate websites.

“If you type in Mad Max Fury … that’s all you have to type in, auto complete will say ‘Mad Max Fury Road Download Free’ and take you to the criminal site.

“This new legislation coming out tomorrow will mean little Australia will have some weapons provided by our government that we (creative industries) can fight to survive.”

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield is pushing for tough new powers that will allow authorities to ban new piracy sites when they crop up. Picture: Gary RamageSource:News Corp Australia

The new measures will broaden the existing laws and give film makers, musicians and other copyright owners tough new powers to seek court orders that would force search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, or internet service providers such as iiNet demote, to block or delete search engine results for pirate websites.

“Online piracy is theft. Downloading or streaming a pirated movie or TV show is no different to stealing a DVD from a shop,” Minister Fifield said.

He said the Government was providing “enormous support” to creative industries and couldn’t “have that good work undone by allowing local creators to be victims of online piracy.”